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Young Driver AMR Finishes Sixth at Spa

Published: Aug 02, 2010

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by
Stuart Turner

Young Driver AMR finished sixth in an eventful race of the GT1 World Championship at Spa-Francorchamps. Darren Turner (GB) and Tomas Enge (CZ) scored good championship points a with sixth place finished in their #7 Young Driver AMNR-Aston Martin DBR9, while Stefan Mücke (D) and Christoffer Nygaard (DK) in the #8 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 did not finish the race.

The main objective of Darren Turner und Tomas Enge this weekend was to collect Championship points and they archived their goal. Enge started from tenth position on the grid in the 60-minute race and lost one place in the beginning. The Czech handed over the Aston Martin to Turner in 11th position and a good pit stop by the Young Driver Team brought Turner out in ninth position. Turner gained three more positions and fought until the very last lap for the fifth position, before he eventually finished sixth.

For Stefan Mücke and Christoffer Nygaard in the #8 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 the streak of bad luck continued in the Belgian round of the World Championship. After starting from a promising third position, Nygaard got stuck between some competitors at the start and dropped down to sixth position. The Danish “Young Driver” fought for sixth position with a Maserati until the end of his stint, but at the end the Dane came out on top of that duel. A problem with a wheelnut at the driver changing pit stop cost valuable time and positions, as Stefan Mücke dropped to 11th. The German was back on the track fighting to get back into the top 10, when the #8 Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9 received a “drive trough” penalty for pitlane speeding with only few minutes to go the race. Mücke came to pits to serve the penalty, but called it a day and concluded the race in the pit - without any chance of a good position.

The Young Driver AMR-team will be on track in four weeks for the “home race” at the Nürburgring!

Quotes of the Young Driver AMR drivers:

Tomas Enge (#7 Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9): “Sixth place is o.k. for this weekend. Fifth would have been perfect, but sixth place means good points. At the start I was a little bit cautious and lost a few positions. After that I got stuck between some other cars and couldn’t get the opportunity to attack cars in front.”

Darren Turner (#7 Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9): “We started the Qualifying Race yesterday from 18th position and worked our way forward to a respectable sixth place finish today, which is a pretty good progress. But the race showed that a change in the ‘Balance of Performance’ of the Aston Martin is more than necessary. Your quickest lap was about two second slower than the best lap of the race winner, and that even on a track that is supposed to be an ‘Aston Martin track’. We really made the best of what we had today, but the last two races showed that the ‘Balance of Performance’ of our car needs some adjustments. But after all, we scored good points today.”

Stefan Mücke (#8 Young Driver-Aston Martin): “During the pit stop, someone hit the button of the speed limiter by mistake. So when I went out of the pit, the speed limiter was not on. I immediately realized it and braked really hard, but I was too quick on the first few metres in the pit lane and got penalized. That was really a shame, because there was a Safety-Car late in the race, which bunched up the field and we really had the car to drive in the points ranks. When I received the drive trough penalty, I drove in the pits and didn’t continue, as there was no sense to drive at the very end of the field for the last couple of minutes.”

Christoffer Nygaard (#8 Young Driver-Aston Martin): “I got stuck at the start between some other cars and lost a few positions. Then I had a long one-on-one fight with a Maserati during the latter part of my stint, which made me kind of crazy. That driver drove really strangely and sometimes took some dangerous lines. But near the end of my stint I finally got him and passed successfully.”

Hardy Fischer (Team principal Young Driver AMR). “Unfortunately we didn’t get a good result for either car today. All of our drivers drove great, but only Darren und Tomas were rewarded with points. Stefan and Christoffer had all the chances for a really great result, but again they had all bad luck one can imagine.”